Magazines For Men – Best Of The Web

The Best Online Magazines for Men

Join us as we cast a glance at the online supply of the best magazines for men available on the internet. And boy, is there a lot to cast a glance at.

Times a changin’. There are bad people in this world who claim that “print is dead”. Frankly, these people may not be too far off track these days. The print versions of men’s magazines are facing competition from the internet that is as stiff as never before. And those who don’t adjust to the threat of free blogs, free ebooks and – let’s face it – free online pornography are in serious trouble. In 2015 the classic men’s mag of them all, Playboy Magazine,announced they would no longer feature nudity in their print edition. If that doesn’t speak volumes for a market in revolution then I wouldn’t know what does.

With the internet overflowing with nudity in all shapes and sizes Playboy had to drop this one essence of their brand. Doing anything else would have meant fighting a lost battle against filesharing and the never-ending supply of videos provided by the large adult-oriented portals.

But there is more to it. As a matter of fact, internet-only men’s magazines might just be one step ahead of print editions whatsoever, and perhaps even rightfully so.

The option to implement a virtually limitless amount of pictures into even the shortest article, the embedding of videos, maps and sounds, and eventually the good ‘ole hyperlink make online-based magazines an unbeatable competition to any print-based publication – nudity or no nudity.

This being said, who are all the up-and-coming online magazines for men that seem to slowly take over the offline market? Let us take a look at the new kids on the block that partly have been around for more than a decade. Luck has it that we found the time to hand-select the cream of the crop in men’s magazines that are available online exclusively.

In order to determine how much more value & novelty factor comes with each magazine we are introducing and ranking them by the following criteria.

What Is This?

The round up.

Best Article

Start with this one.

Worst Article

Tastes like nothing.

Visual Appeal (0.0 – 10.0)

Important for men, too.

Information Value (0.0 – 10.0)

How deep does it get?

Masculine Credibility (0.0 – 10.0)

Is this a real men’s mag?

In no particular order here comes a hand-selected peak at the créme de la créme of online magazines for men

The Art Of Manliness

Founded in 2008 The Art of Manliness today probably is the largest online men’s interest magazine in the English language. Originating in Oklahoma, a US state most Europeans are prone to link to rednecks or Indians, The Art of Manliness has managed to provide the avid reader with quality articles for almost a decade now.

8.5 Very Appealing

As they have been around long enough The Art of Manliness have had enough time to give their online property a decent look. The site looks professional and is well compliment through drawings and shapes that are done by their very own illustrator. Navigation and overall visual appeal are flawless.

8.5 Very Informative

Thousands of detailed articles, a podcast and an active YouTube Channel – The Art of Manliness has it all.

While some of the videos do not offer too much value and at times even come across as goofy, it is the articles that make for the most interesting feature on The Art of Manliness.

8.0 Credible

One thing that might be safe to say is that the authors have/had a Christian background although they don’t overtly make that statement. As much as a the idea of community-based religion seems laughable to the average European it is Christian Americans who have the most normal (i.e. “conservative” or what may have you) approach to family and thus: sex relations. With that in mind it may be forgiven that the main author’s wife is an active writer on a men’s only website.

Primer Magazine

Self-titled ‘A Guy’s Post-College Guide To Growing Up’Primer Magazine comes with an abundance of useful insight, covering virtually every topic in the field of men’s interest. Compare Primer Magazine to the aforementioned Art of Manliness and you could say that Primer has a much more practial approach to all things man-related: The Art of Manliness may feature some good writing on societal and historical topics, but Primer can trumphe with its own sections on investing, working out as well as drink mixing.

9.0 Very Appealing

Primer unoubtely comes with the most convincing layout and design in our current introduction to the best magazines for men. Carefully crafted and in a logically built layout the site can be navigated conveniently. Just like The Art of Manliness Primer takes pride in making its own illustrations. As another upside, they also take every single photgraphy posted on the site by themselves: “we believe great ideas should look great too”, as they put it.

9.0 Very Informative

Thanks to their good design, Primer offers the latest of its content to the reader right at first sight. All of the sections mentioned in the outline are divided into furthergoing subsections with even more apt and well-written articles. The more practical approach of Primer allows for some real gems such as their section on survival which clearly stands out from the others.

7.5 Credible

Primer states to be run as a single man project Primer has no staff writers. While it is true that Primer will not try to lure you in with fluffy click-bait headlines or bikini pictures, a practise that the big content farms of maxim, fhm and manshealth excel in, it is odd that one of their most promising section, namely the one on interviews & profiles, seems to be written entirely by staff writers. On top of that, a promising link to an interview with Henry Rollins does not even lead to an interview, but to a short staff-written article.

8.5 Very Appealing

It won’t take long before you realize that Valet has been designed by men of the trade. The magazine looks professional and every corner of their property can be reached through a well-fabricated system of navigation.

8.0 Very Informative

What can be overseen is that behind the semi-male glamour facade you will often find actual good and helpful advice. Take their great article on 10 Expert Travel Hacks, for example, stating that “travel hacks” like ‘bring an empty water bottle’ or ‘pack earplugs’ would be insulting their readers intelligence. Valet Magazine may feature a lot of shopping advice and the likes, however, it also features an abundance of excellent writing.

6.5 Still Credible

As a ‘professional’ online magazine – professional in the sense that Valet was founded by men who were already in the business – the magazine comes with a lot of content that seems more ike shopping advice than tips, how-to’s and insights into masculinity or leading a more manly lifestyle. That does not necessarily mean the writing has to be stale or generic as pieces like The Key To Combatting Swamp Crotch prove.

Men’s Journal

This one is an exception. As we are looking to introduce the best magazines for men appearing exclusively in a non-print version Men’s Journal shouldn’t actually make the list. Why are they still on it? Because they are good. The online outlet of the monthly men’s lifestyle magazine established in 1992 is maintained in accordance and expansion to the print issue. Just like in print the online version every month has a focus on particular themes such as travel, motor or food & drink. This being said, mensjournal is not updated on a permanent (read:daily) basis like most of the online men’s magazines, but as we shall see below that is not really a major drawback.

8.5 Very Appealing

To be honest the overall layout and design of mensjournal.com is nothing that could be desribed as min-blowing or even impressive. There are no gimmicks or special features and apart from the occasional article slider the whole website does not come with a single dynamic feature – and boy does it look good! What others might just call “outdated” could as well be called, as I do, timeless. The look of Mensjournal.com is about being straight to the point with the least possible amount of nonsense or distraction. Quite the manly approach to presenting yourself, I say.

7.5 Very Informative

As a magazine for men that originates in a print issue, mensjournal.com features professional writers exclusively. This aspect will shine through more often than not as, sadly, many of the articles leave a ‘filler’-aftertaste. Mensjournal can make up for that by its brandname authority – and their well-stacked funds, one might say: being a professional and successful business the magazine is able to draw in all kinds of a-list celebrities for interviews and feature articles. The already mentioned Anthony Bourdain is flanked by interviews with Eminem, John Mellencamp or even Pierce Brosnan.

EuroMenTravel

Yes, you read that right. We are bold enough to mention our very own up-and-coming travel magazine in an article about other magazines for men. With what justification, if any, you ask? The answer is simple and starts with a ‘t’. In basically every major online men’s magazine traveling is always treated like a distant relative; nowhere is traveling in relation to men’s interest to be found as a main category. Even though all magazines will cover the field of man-related travels, none of them make things like travel tips for men the forefront of their presence. – Yet this is just what we do.

As Europe’s first travel magazine for men we fill the gap between traveling and a men’s interest mag, a profession that before us has only been covered by low quality magazines that were either catering to so called stag parties, if at all. Euromentravel for that part is new, fresh an provides quality information for the worldly, the traveling man.

8.0 Very Appealing

Euromentravel, similar to Primer Magazine, has a practical approach to design. While offering easy-access information the site maintains a professional look. Improvements could be made in regard to giving the site a more distinctive and branded face, but this aspect can be neglected as the site is about the message, not about the messenger.

8.5 Higly Informative

Every travel related article you will read on EuroMenTravel stems from the personal experience of the author. Thus, the core principle of the magzine is authenticity. There is no fluff, no generics and the least possible amount of information that could be easily gathered elsewhere on the internet.
Take, for instance, the 48 Hour City Guides that were some of the first article to appear on the site. All of them were written by locals who simply enjoyed introducing their cities for a wider audience. Needless to say that our locals often happened to be professional writers at the same time. Pramod Kanakath who wrote the piece on 48 Hours in Jakarta, regularly publishes in The Washington Post and The Guardian.

9.5 Exceptionally Credible

Euromentravel serves the interest of the single traveling male exclusively and makes sure that all information added to the site is approaching whatever topic it is dealing with from that angle. It almost seems needless to say that with two exceptions of quality writing by taleneted female writers who were writing on custom-made shirts and traveling to Cluj-Napoca every single article on Euromentravel is written by men, not women. If focussing on those contributors who by their nature will focus on the interest of men does not stand for high standards in masculinity and credibility then I don’t know what does. [editor’s note: women also happen to be the toughest to deal with when negotiatng over possible guest contributions]